Attaining proper physical form and technique is an important aspect of numerous types of athletic training, as well as injury prevention and physical rehabilitation. Learning to acquire proper form and technique is particularly important in the sport of swimming. To properly execute a swimming stroke, including the four primary strokes (i.e., freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly), a swimmer must be aware of the position and movement of his or her various body parts throughout the entire stroke. Maintaining proper or preferred body position and movement allows the swimmer to execute the stroke in the most desirable manner (e.g., the most efficient and/or powerful stroke). Proper or preferred body position or movement may further serve to prevent injury to the swimmer. Moreover, while certain positions and movements of body parts during a particular swimming stroke may be generally recommended to all swimmers as the proper or preferred positions or movements, some swimmers may find that more individualized variations of preferred body position and movement during a stroke allow the swimmer to better achieve his or her desired results. Moreover, the proper or preferred positions and/or movements of these body parts may change for different swimming strokes, as well as during a single swimming stroke.
While a swimmer may be taught or shown proper or preferred body position and/or movements for executing a swimming stroke, maintaining such proper or preferred positioning and/or movement while actually practicing the stroke in water may often be difficult. A swimmer's body position and/or movement may deviate from the proper or preferred position and/or movement without the swimmer being aware. In fact, the swimmer may believe that he or she is practicing a stroke with the proper or preferred body position and/or movement when in fact he or she is not.
Among the body part positions with which a swimmer is concerned while executing a swimming stroke is maintaining proper positions of the arms, wrists, hands and fingers, including all corresponding joints. The positions and orientations of these body parts may affect both the swimmer's propulsions through the water, as well as the drag the swimmer experiences. In most cases, the swimmer looks to maximize propulsion while minimizing drag. Accordingly, the swimmer must be aware of factors such as the location, angles, rotation and the extension of these body parts, among other factors, throughout the stroke, including at the time of entry into, movement through, and exit from the water. These factors further should be considered not just for each individual body part alone, but also in relation to the other parts of the body.
Maintaining or learning to maintain proper or preferred positioning of body parts, and particularly the arms, wrists, hands, fingers, shoulders, legs including knees, ankles and feet, hack, head, neck or hips is also important in several other sports and athletic activities, including, for example, golf, tennis, racquetball, baseball, softball, volleyball, yoga, boxing, and other track and field sports and activities. Other persons who may find maintaining proper positioning of the arms, wrists, hands, fingers, shoulders, legs including knees, ankles and feed, back, head, neck or hips to be important include persons engaged in physical therapy or physical rehabilitation, as well as persons who wish to achieve a proper or preferred position of the arms, wrists, hands, fingers, shoulders, legs including knees, ankles and feet, back, head, neck or hips while completing other activities (e.g., typing) in order to avoid injury or improve technique. Often times, such movements may be repetitive, while other times the participant may simply desire to maintain a particular position for a particular length of time. However, participants in these various sports and activities may also find it difficult to maintain such proper or preferred positions while actually engaged in practicing or performing the sport or activity.
Accordingly, there exists a need heretofore unmet in the relevant field to address the needs of participants in the sports and activities described above with respect to training and learning to repetitively perform actions with a proper or preferred positioning and movement of body parts, including the arm, wrist, hand, fingers, shoulders, legs including knees, ankles and feet, back, head, neck or hips.